


Nightmares and Madness

by ZigZagSpecialist



Category: Original Work
Genre: Night Terrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:21:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28979544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZigZagSpecialist/pseuds/ZigZagSpecialist
Summary: A bit of practice until I get back on the ball.Part 1 of however many





	Nightmares and Madness

“It will be okay” 

We knelt in the church pews, the floor was cold and dark. Ryan traced the veins of white marble through the dark floor as he hung his head down low. It felt wrong, he decided, something felt wrong. The church was always cold but somehow it was now lifeless. The usual peaceful sermon from the clergy felt hollow somehow. But he and the others repeated their answers dutifully. Then someone coughed, or choked. Some near imperceptible noise that one might make in church to be quietly respectful. Ryan looked up without meaning to and in that same instant he knew it was wrong to do so. 

The church shape as a building always reminded him of a teardrop, even with the upper floors he knew were there but had never seen. Everything was the same, chairs in the same place, the panels in the right order. The windows even let in light in just the same way as a twilight before the dawn. But Ryan’s body shuddered. It was wrong. The priest kept calmly monologuing and sweeping his hands in that same almost pleading motion to get someone to hear him. What was wrong? Why were his palms suddenly slick with sweat and every inch of his clothing felt restrictive? What made his entire body tighten like a coiled spring, ready to run at any moment?

It was the light, his brain suddenly chimed in, something in the light bothered his every nerve. But that didn’t make any sense. Light was warm, comforting. 

“Daytime is better, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe”

The voice that filled his mind caused every hair on his body to stand on end. But he never saw who spoke. 

In that moment, he realized something he hadn’t before. Even though he normally wouldn’t be able to make out the sky beyond those windows, he somehow saw the moon. It was close. So close. Too close. 

The light filtered through the windows becoming a near blinding white cheshire grin across the floor. In the distance, outside maybe, Ryan heard a noise that sounded like a prolonged sigh, a release of air that just emptied your lungs and kept going. A wheeze. 

No, A scream. Thousands of screaming voices, the way a crowd’s voice melted into one cacophonous sound and it didn’t stop. 

Undeterred, the priest and his clergy kept speaking calmly, as if nothing was wrong. Ryan tried to reach for his mother beside him, to shake her. Instead his fingers dug into his palms as his eyes focused on one particular person he hadn’t seen before. Their features felt...familiar, but he couldn’t describe them. Like seeing an old friend grown. Ryan found himself unable to look away from this new person in the black cassock. His vision tunneled and he saw lizards crawling along the walls behind that person. 

But they weren’t lizards, what he had mistaken for legs and tails were thumbs and fingers of hands that gripped his shoulders and kept his head straight like his mother aggressively trying to pose him for a picture. 

His panic turned into blind terror, his eyes burned. 

“The Moon” 

The figure had stepped up to the podium and motioned grandly. When had Ryan been moved in front of this thing? The congregation behind him echoed the statement in a robotic tone. 

“The Moon”

“Do you see His face?”

“There are no Faces” The congregation answered. 

Their collective voice becoming a near mimic to a text-to-speech conversation. 

Ryan stifled a sob as his arm tried to reach out for something nearby, something he knew was there. But he couldn’t look away. The figure gripped its massive chest as it’s featureless face cracked like porcelain and spread dark veins across its head. It finally turned to face him and underneath the veneer he could see the mummified head of a dog, eyes replaced with gold marbles. 

“Beware it’s light, Reflected, seen, felt. Madness spreads in her children.” 

It’s voice reverberated inside his skull, down into his chest. 

The corpse priest slowly clutched his chest tighter, the screaming outside changed from panic to blind rage. The congregation behind them screeched like animals. The thing before him slowly opened it’s robes and it made a sound like crunching metal and wet tearing flesh.

While Ryan was paralyzed before, suddenly every instinct he had was screaming, even he was screaming, barely audible over the choir of hate and frothing madness behind him. He yanked and strained and thrashed. He didn’t even care if he broke anything at that point, he HAD to get away. 

Under it’s robes was an endless array of stars and clouds. Space as it was unfolded before him. In the center of it all was a still beating, pulsing heart. It pumped no blood, served no purpose but simply continued beating, red and warm and full of impossible life. The hands that gripped Ryan still now lurched him forward, controlling his limbs and dragging him by the wrist like a disobedient child as he wailed. He knew he shouldn’t touch it, even if he wasn’t completely disgusted by its continued existence. His fingers slowly closed around the wet muscle. 

Ryan moved, his entire body rolling before he could stop himself and onto the floor. His eyes burned and his chest ached. He was soaked in sweat and salt, he had to grab his arms and legs to stop from shaking. His mind burned the dream into memory, the terror he felt. He realized from his thrashed throat he had been screaming silently for hours.

The next morning, he called out quietly. His throat was so thrashed, even his manager agreed he should stay home. Ryan just had to move on, forget the dream and try to shake that pitiful feeling. Not every day you get to realize how powerless you are.  
Checking his phone for any messages, he sighed and washed his face again. The scratching beneath his fingers told him he should probably shave but he shrugged it off for later.  
He had no energy for anything.

He needed some company.  
The rest of the morning was filled with binge eating and mindlessly scrolling through a korean basket weaving forum for anything mildly interesting. The dull doldrums set in fast, so a decision was made. 

“Time to bother people and fuck about” Ryan groaned as he rolled off his couch into a slow stand, which turned into a lazy stretch. He flinched as a few vertebrae in his spine popped audibly but quickly recovered, shaking his head. Just another in a long list of small injuries he’d put on the backburner. Swiping dexterously, he blind dialed and put it to speaker. He didn’t really care if she answered or not. The usual ring-ring was staticky today. 

He paused halfway into his shirt as the ringing stopped. Ryan blinked before a husky grumble came over the speaker. 

“..Hello?” she growled. 

He almost snorted at her nasally morning voice before taking a deep breath. 

“Hello There! I’m calling to see if Miss Oschekia can come out to play today” in his most annoyingly chipper ‘announcer voice’ he could muster. The other line shuffled then a slightly more awake but muffled voice sighed across the space.

“I will break all of your legs” she rumbled. He could tell she was smiling, even with how tired she might have been. Ryan rolled his eyes and zipped up his jeans. 

“You’ll have to get up to do that, and I'm pretty sure I need those for driving. Did Big Teef stay up too late drinking again?” Ryan teased into the phone as he put on his shoes “You sleep too much anyway, I see that cat ancestry now.” 

The Sabertooth let out an audible yawn “Fuuck….off, Suck my balls” She was awake now. 

Ryan smirked and picked up his phone “Too early for that, like the 8 ball says ‘Ask again later’, at least after breakfast.” He waited and frowned at the lack of response. 

“Where we going?” she mumbled.

“I’m paying bitch, don’t worry about it”

“But where we going?”

“The land of breakfast burritos, Juanita’s, why you got somewhere else in mind?” Ryan locked his front door as he stepped outside. A dull shiver ran through him as the harsh morning light warmed his cool skin. The memory of his nightmare wormed its way back into his mind again before he shook it away and stepped to his car. 

The sabertooth groaned again and more shuffling across the phone. “Not really, just not sure if i’m hungry enough” she mumbled. Ryan shrugged on reflex. “You’ll get hungry, I know you, I’ll be around in like...15 or 20 minutes” he shuffled around for sunglasses. 

“Alright alright, i’ll get up” She conceded. Ryan smiled wide, deciding to test his luck. 

“You won’t even need to put on pants, just hop in, I got a blanket!” he snorted as he pulled out of his driveway and into the street. The noise that came over the phone was very feminine and her next words were rushed. 

“Shuddup! I’ll see you soon!” and a dull BLEEP ended the call.

Ryan giggled to himself, driving along. Stella always had a way of making him forget his troubles, even if she had her own mess to deal with. Stella the Sabertooth, who everyone thought was just some california girl. Of course, there was no end to people speculating where she came from, considering she was smaller than an average and her markings were more akin to a Liger. Then there was her big ass dagger teeth and electric blue eyes. No one knew what to make of her, which led to more than one dumbass getting laid out for assuming something. Stella was proud of her mixed heritage and wouldn’t stand idiots. Ryan didn’t assume anything about anybody, if it wasn’t brought up in conversation, it wasn’t important. 

They seemed more like fire and ice than anything else, Ryan didn’t like going out, hell he didn’t even drink. Stella was always the party girl, young and ready to rock. But he never gave up on her, as much as she occasionally hated him for it.

Ryan tried to keep his music going, pushing away the uncomfortable silence, but his mind drifted. The lack of restful sleep made his head swim and more than once he swore he saw something out of the corner of his eye in the woods along the roadside. He told himself he needed food, needed to wake up. Sleeping wasn’t an option he wanted to entertain. 

To his great disappointment when he pulled up to her house, Stella didn’t trot out in her panties. But the leggings she wore showed off her legs in all the right ways. She slugged him in the arm for staring before grabbing his blanket out of the backseat and curling it around her waist. 

“What’s up chump?” she smirked, those big blue eyes of her sparkling. Ryan shook his head and whined. 

“Damn it, You anthros get all the luck, if I didn’t know, I’d swear you’d been up, humans, we gotta wear all that shit..” Ryan groaned dramatically as he dragged his fingers down his face, stretching the bags under his eyes. 

“Hey, I can’t help being beautiful!” Stella huffed, fluffing up her fur like a starlet. Ryan managed not to stare at her breasts as they jiggled in her tight shirt. She clearly wasn’t wearing anything under that. But Ryan whined louder and sighed. “All the luck!” 

Once they had gotten their food, Ryan drove them back to her house to eat. Eating in the car always felt gross to him. Stella had no such qualms but respected his wishes in his car at least. After a few minutes of eating she paused and nudged him with her foot to get his attention. “So..Spill” she crossed her arms at the look on his face “I know You, so spill, you look like shit and you’ve got that look in your eyes, miles away.”

Ryan blinked at her, then groaned and swallowed, shaking his head. Why couldn’t he just ignore it?

Her heart raced, breath came harder and her hair stood on end. Anxiety and anticipation made her sweat even more than her jog to the park. Finally rounding the corner past the trees, she spotted the bench and couldn’t contain that last burst of energy as she hopped to her final destination. 

As she looked around, the ground was still wet with early morning, the bench was thankfully mostly dry to give her a place to rest while waiting. She took a deep breath and tried to control herself. “It’s okay, he’s not here yet, i’m early and..” she trailed off, sighing with a grin on her lips. She couldn’t contain her enthusiasm, every time it was like new, just a thrill and slightly different every time. She knew the basics, but every guy was different. This one made her feel like an eager teenager again, almost uncontrollable. It scared her a little but the prospect of actually being with him sent a shiver down her spine and into her crotch that practically radiated outwards. Now beginning to cool, she checked her watch “Damn, I really did make good time..shit” she mumbled under her breath. Then jumped as her ringtone chimed in her ears, seeing on her watch that it was him calling. She shook again and swiped a finger across the face of the watch. 

“Heylo? Don’t tell me you’re gonna be late” she half-laughed into the air. A pause.

“What? Oh! No, no, I was uh, calling to see where you were. I’m guessing you’re already there” His smooth voice rang in her ears through the earbuds, both calming her and priming her. 

“Yep! Sorry, I just got too excited to wait ya know?” she leaned side to side as she chewed her lip behind her smiling teeth.

His laugh made her stomach flutter.

“Crazy girl, anyway, come into the woods there’s a view you have to see! I just found it and...well, perfect spot to watch the sunrise” he sighed having built himself up to ask her that. She swooned and rolled her eyes, stupid cheesy romantic gestures were the best.

“Alright, but it better be some view, otherwise you better clean my running shoes” she warned, only half serious. Any romantic attempt would definitely be worth some muddy sneakers at this point. Her tail wiggled and she hopped up, stretching before turning in a circle. 

“So where am I going?”

“You’re at the bench right? So take the trail on the left side behind it” he sounded just as enthusiastic as she did. A good sign. She turned, seeing a small footpath leading into the forest and nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet before trotting into the dense wood. “Alright” she mumbled.

“You’re not gonna just get me lost right? Or lead me straight to some crazy Axe murderer? Are you the Axe murderer?” She teased between breaths. 

He chuckled and scoffed “If I was going to, you think I would’ve done it already. Ah, now Keep going until you see a tree with one of those blue tags on it and turn right.” 

She paused at the tree, a metallic blue tag dangling from a nail in its bark. She always wondered what that meant. The trail did indeed split off to the right and so she followed. She hoped it wasn’t too much further. 

“Turn LEft at that pyramid shaped rock.” 

She slowed enough to register the pointy rock to the side of the trail, then turned and stepped into a large clearing with a large boulder in the center. The cloud cover was moving quickly, casting crawling shadows across the ground from the moonlight. 

[You Have Arrived]

The pleasant neutral tone of the Maps directory made her jump. Without thinking she looked around, then to her wrist to see if she had accidentally opened an app somehow. Instead a cold dread washed over her as her fur bristled. Something was watching her. Her head rose and somehow despite the lack of obvious movement her eyes were drawn to a gnarled looking tree root that stuck out of the rock. The moonlight shifted and if she hadn’t been staring at it, she wouldn’t have noticed it. 

It waved at her.

Or made a motion similar to a wave, as it almost casually slid out of a crag in the rock. At least that’s what she assumed it had been hiding in. She was too stunned to move, whatever this thing was it didn’t look real. It moved with a sort of grace even as it twitched and rolled. Then the moonlight passed through the clouds again, illuminating the thing. Immediately she knew what it reminded her of. 

The claymation figures from old movies like Jason and the Argonauts. That’s why her mind had such a rejection of it. Like some superimposed figure in the real world. Somehow the realization alone made her feel sick. It looked like some twisted, gnarled tiny tree in the shadows, but now in the light, she saw the thing’s head, far too big for its thin neck to support. Then another sick realization: It was staring at her. Dark black divots for eye sockets but it was staring at her. Its lumpy, crude looking mouth opened but instead of noise she heard it in her head. 

“Didn’t I tell you the view would be great?” her earbuds sent his voice directly into her head. 

Cold fear swept through her as bile rose into the back of her throat. But she didn’t have time to cry or yell before its impossibly long arms reached out. Her instincts served her better, twisting away from its grasp and bolting off back through the woods. Her smaller body was made for evasion and speed, ducking and diving through the undergrowth. She made it back to the path, not slowing for a moment as adrenaline forced her legs to keep going. With the blood pounding in her ears she didn’t even register that it was still talking to her in HIS voice. The realization made her eyes burn with tears she didn’t have the thought to push away. 

“Hey! Where you going? Come back! Don’t you want to see it?” 

Until she reached up to yank the bits of plastic out of her ears and somehow managed to cram them into her pocket. She frantically rubbed her eyes and blissfully saw the main paved trail before her feeling safe.

Her heart raced, breath came harder and her hair stood on end. Adrenaline cooled in her veins as she began to slow the last few steps to the bench and began to look behind her.

“..No..” was the sickly croak that left her throat before the fingers that held her leg tightened and jerked her backwards, hauling her in like a fish as she clawed for freedom and let out a bloodcurdling scream.


End file.
